LONDON - 1 May 2018:Europeans took to the streets on Monday, celebrating the international workers’ holiday of May Day with an assortment of rallies and demonstrations, which in France turned violent as protesters threw petrol bombs at police.
One Paris police officer was seriously burnt and two others injured in confrontations with protesters.
A police officer detains a protester as she and others attempt to defy a ban and to gather at Taksim Square to celebrate May Day, in central Istanbul, Turkey May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan
Riot police use tear gas against demonstrators during a May Day rally in central Ankara, Turkey, on May 1, 2012.(Reuters/Umit Bektas)
In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up demonstrations and arrested hundreds.
A small group of Italian demonstrators clashed with police as they tried to break through a police barrier in the northern city of Turin. The spokesman for Belgium’s Workers Party was knifed in the leg at a rally in Liege.
Elsewhere, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma abruptly left a rally he was due to address as workers booed him and fights broke out between his supporters and opponents.
In the United States, unions and activists planned protests against U.S. President Donald Trump.
In Paris, protesters threw petrol bombs and makeshift missiles at police, injuring at least three officers. Television showed police officers trying to shake out flames from their riot gear and clouds of tear gas enveloping the streets around the Bastille monument.
The clashes foreshadowed the approaching confrontation between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the two winners of the first round of France’s presidential election. They will meet in a second-round vote on Sunday, and each verbally attacked the other at May Day rallies.
The centrist Macron evoked the memory of a May Day 22 years ago as he tried to paint the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Le Pen as an extremist. On that day, a young Moroccan man drowned after being pushed into the River Seine by supporters of Le Pen’s National Front, led then by her father, Jean-Marie.
For her part, Le Pen portrayed Macron as a clone of the outgoing president, the highly unpopular Francois Hollande. She called for France to reclaim its “independence” from the European Union, an institution Macron supports.
Similarly, the violence in Turkey echoed clashes in last month’s referendum between those who backed giving President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers and those who opposed him. Erdogan narrowly won that referendum.
May Day protests are an annual event in Turkey, but this year’s holiday takes place in the uneasy aftermath of last July’s failed coup, in which 240 people died. Since then, about 120,000 people have been suspended or sacked from their jobs in a series of purges. More than 40,000 have been arrested.
Turkish unions said they would not attempt to march this year on Taksim Square, a traditional rallying point for anti-government protests that has been declared off-limits for demonstrators. Nonetheless, dozens of people were rounded up for trying to get to the square. More than 200 were detained overall, police said.
Demonstrators clash with riot police during a rally marking May Day in Santiago, Chile May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
Thousands of Philippine workers and activists marched in a May Day rally in Manila on Tuesday in protest against what they said was President Rodrigo Duterte’s failure to keep a campaign promise to get rid of short-term employment contracts.
There were no reports of violence, but the presidential palace complex was locked down, initially denying journalists’ access as protesters burned Duterte’s effigy with a sign “Liar King” several hundred meters outside.
A pledge to act against employers who hire workers short-term and without adequate benefits helped Duterte, a former city mayor, win the presidency in May 2016.
Shortly after assuming power, Duterte warned that any company that failed to stop hiring short-term labor risked closure.
But trade unions say the practice has persisted, particularly in shopping malls and the fast-food industry.
A leader of the left-wing Bayan (Nation) movement, Renato Reyes, said the president had done what other leaders had failed to do in 30 years - unite fragmented labor groups.
“The historic unity of the working class is the direct result of the failure of the regime to bring an end to contractualization, a major campaign promise of the president,” Reyes said in a statement.
“For two years, the executive dribbled the ball, only to pass it to Congress at the last minute.”
About 8,000 police and soldiers kept watch at the march. Police estimated up to 10,000 people, waving flags and carrying banners, took part.
In central Cebu, Duterte asked Congress to pass a law amending the “outdated” Labour Code “to keep it attuned to the realities of our time”.
“I remain firm in my commitment to put an end to ‘ENDO’ and illegal contractualization,” Duterte said, referring to commonly used term of “end of contract” among minimum wage earners.
“A mere executive order is not enough. I cannot be a legislator. It is not allowed. But, I can only implement.”
He signed an executive order prohibiting illegal contracting or sub-contracting and asked the labor department to submit a list of companies “engaged in or suspected to be engaged in labor-only contraction.
There were also protests in other key cities outside the capital as workers’ groups demanded higher wages, improved working conditions, including for millions of migrant workers abroad. The Philippines is locked in a dispute with Kuwait over reports of abuse of Philippine domestic helpers there.
Last month, the labor department ordered fast-food chain Jollibee Foods Corp to regularize more than 6,000 workers by making them permanent.
One French police officer was seriously burnt and two others injured in clashes at a May Day demonstration in Paris on Monday in which protesters threw Molotov cocktails and other missiles, the police said.
French CRS riot police protect themselves from flames during clashes at the traditional May Day labour union march in Paris, France, May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Television pictures showed policemen trying to shake flames from their riot gear, and of tear gas enveloping the streets around Paris’ Bastille monument.
This year’s May Day came less than a week ahead of the final round of a presidential election where voters must choose between the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron.
Some trade unionists and left-wing activists sought to make the day one of national solidarity against the National Front, mirroring protests in 2002 when Le Pen’s father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, was a candidate.
Marine Le Pen tweeted her support for the injured policemen and said the incident was the type of unacceptable behavior that she no longer wanted to see on French streets.
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